


The Last Book on the Shelf

by cajunquandary



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:48:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27025321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cajunquandary/pseuds/cajunquandary
Summary: The reader has lived with the Winchesters for a few years when they finally get to take a real vacation together and go to the Gulf Coast.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Reader, Sam Winchester/Reader, dean winchester/ reader/ sam winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	The Last Book on the Shelf

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for Bev’s Milestone Celebration with a gif and the prompt, “The waves rise and fall and crash in a gentle rhythm, and I can almost forget. I get to the lighthouse, turn around, and my footsteps are already gone. I like that. But there are certain things you can’t erase…” I couldn’t get the song “I Hope You’re the End of My Story” by the Pistol Annies out of my head while writing this so… Sorry! Thank you @chaos-and-the-calm67 for hosting this. I never write in present tense, so this was truly a challenge!

Loving a Winchester is more than a full time job. Loving two takes everything. It requires all of your motivation, dedication, and consideration. Don’t forget the pie. Don’t leave boots in the walkway. Keep the alcohol reserve as stocked as possible. Wash Baby gently with clockwise motions, not counter clockwise, and for the love of Chuck, never in straight lines. Always order extra fries, especially when getting milkshakes. Don’t tease Dean about his collection of tiny things—tiny alcohol bottles, tiny hotel soaps, tiny army men, tiny books, tiny baby socks, etc. Don’t dry Sam’s clothes in a machine, otherwise they shrink too much. It’s always okay to sing Zepplin in the shower—in fact, it’s practically an invitation. The only thing that comes out of these showers with the boys are soap fights and occasional slippery falls and bruises that last three weeks. Sometimes, someone ends up sleeping on the floor or in the Impala at motels. Dean tosses and turns, Sam snores really loud, and I yell in my sleep. No matter what, they tell me “you’re never alone.” I’ve learned that when you’re family and things get bad, really bad, it’s okay; even when there is rage and hurt there is forgiveness and love. From the day the boys welcomed me home to the day we all go home for that final time, nothing in this world could separate us.

Until now.

“I hope you’re the end of my story

I hope you’re as far as it goes

I hope you’re the last word I ever utter

It’s never your time to go”

I stand looking out over the Gulf, the wind seeming to flow right through me. Only about fifty yards to my left, Sam and Dean frolic in the waist-deep swell. It’s apparent that an argument has spurred an altercation—something to do with Dean, an angry crustacean, and Sam’s rear. I laugh until my belly shakes watching the two idjits trying to drown each other, my voice carried by the salty breeze toward shore. How nice it is to have a weekend to ourselves! I’ve lived with the boys for a few years now. Vacations really aren’t our thing, but after the last few hunts and close calls, we’d decided on some family time, at least for a day or two. It helps that the world is quiet right now—no monster activity as far as we can tell. I know when we return, there will probably be more cases than we can handle, but for now I try to enjoy the moment and the cold beer in the sand by my bare feet. The road’s been long and hard for us all. Sometimes, it’s hard for us to remember why we do this, risk everything for people who often don’t know or don’t care, but then something happens to remind us. This trip is more about a celebration that we are still here, still together, than it is a vacation. Or maybe that’s what vacation means? I never really understood the word anyway.

“Sometimes this road that we travel

Feels like it’s leading us on

And spinnin our wheels just stirs up the gravel

Before you know it, it’s gone”

I remember when I met the Winchesters a few years back. I’d just been attacked and my best friend killed by a werewolf when I called a coworker to come pick me up from the police station. My eyes were still pouring tears when the black car had rolled up, and I launched myself at the young man getting out of the vehicle before realizing that it wasn’t my colleague, but a kind stranger who happened to have just killed the beast in question. In fact, I didn’t notice whose arms I’d collapsed in until my blubbering calmed after about an hour or so. Surely Chuck played a hand in that debacle, probably with a trigger happy Cupid. Before any of us knew what happened, we couldn’t imagine this life apart.

“I hope you’re the end of my story

I hope you’re as far as it goes

I hope you’re the last word I ever utter

It’s never your time to go”

I like taking pictures of everything—the boys of course, but also the places we go, the people we save, and sometimes I catch a frame or two of a monster before we gank ‘em. Instead of a typical hunter’s journal, I keep a memory book of sorts. Or the Encyclopedia of Crazy as Dean likes to call it. Sam helps me with the written entries since my memory isn’t quite what it used to be (after so many concussions and mini-stroke.) Dean flips through it at night when he thinks everyone is asleep, sneaking it off of its place as the last book on the shelf in the library, eyes glued to the pages, sometimes laughing quietly or tearing up or both. Altogether, I like to see my book more as a memoir of us—even titled “The Adventures of Moose, Squirrel, Feathers, and Y/N/N,” with a special dedication to Pitchfork and entire sections for friends both here and on the other side. Even in just a few short years, the bindings strain with overabundance of entries and attachments, but perhaps the most important one of all is the letter I wrote for the boys after my first near-death experience working a case with them.

“I’ll keep on turning the pages

Oh what a story to tell

You’ll still be my sweetheart when everything ages

You’ll be the last book on the shelf”

It’s a silly, sad, sappy letter that I sometimes carry with me when we leave the safety of the bunker, just in case I don’t make it back. Out of habit, my hand moves to the pocket in my flannel the letter rests in, a frayed corner just sticking out of the top. Sam teased me earlier about wearing a long sleeve flannel shirt and bikini to the beach, how ridiculous I looked, but Dean had just smiled and slung his own shirt back over his shoulders, daring Sammy to chase him into the cool waves of the November currents. I’d been slower to join them at first, migraine morphing my sense of the world around me. For some time, the shells under my feet and roar of something grand and ancient filled my sensitive ears with comfort. I’m strolling along again, closing the distance between my feet and the lighthouse, the boys somewhere behind me now. The waves rise and fall and crash in a gentle rhythm, and I can almost forget. I get to the lighthouse, turn around, and my footsteps are already gone. I like that. But there are certain things you can’t erase, like loving a Winchester.

“I hope you’re the end of my story

I hope you’re as far as it goes

I hope you’re the last word I ever utter

It’s never your time to go”

I can feel the eyes of the waiting reaper on the back of my head as it peers down from the top of lighthouse. Sunset is almost over, casting long, dark shadows across the sand and my crumpled body in the distance. I’m so thankful that the Gulf is louder than the wails of Winchesters as they shake my empty body. The pain is gone, it left some time while I was remembering. I guess that’s what they mean when they say your life flashes before your eyes. And my reaper has some sort of humor for choosing a lighthouse. Walk into the light, right? I know it’s my time to go, and peace is already filling my soul. I hope it’s a long time before I see a Winchester wherever I’m going, but before I go with my reaper, I do my best to project my voice through the veil.

“Dean… Sam… See you on the flipside.”

In the last light before I fade, I catch the boys looking all around, then to each other, as if they’d heard me loud and clear.

“I hope you’re the last words I ever utter

It’s never your time to go”


End file.
